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Topic: Trap Out in Hyde Park, NY (Read 2917 times)

You may remember my big 15# Hyde Park swarm and the fact that the folks want the bee colony out of the primary bee tree (where they swarmed from). Well, I started the trapout yesterday. I thought I was really ingenious in taking one of my old deer tree stands with me to use as a platform. Then, I found out old Hickory tree was way too fat for the stand to hang flat. Oh, what to do???

Take a look and you’ll see that I set up the nuc box on a couple of 2”x6”s laid out on the tree stand braces. Now, that’s ingenious. ;)

I plan to go back in a couple of days with a frame of eggs. I have done a trap out before but thanks to all the folks here for the refresser course.

There may have been an afterswarm that no one saw. Looking at activity, I am guessing that there may not bee more than 4# left. They are really small and gentle. I'll bee happy to have their genetics in my yard. (By the way, the egg frame will come from another of my feral swarm sourced colonies.)

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

After going thru one of my feral-sourced hives and finally finding a frame with a few "fresh" eggs and very young larvae, I went back to Hyde Park and swapped out an undrawn foundation frame for this one. I took this photo after the swap.They've clearly adopted the box. I will check it out in another week or so to make sure I don't have to go 10-frame. (If I do, they may be surprised by the change of color.) :-D

There must have been a big graduation party today for the house bees to move to the field. At three-thirty in the afternoon the "up and out" traffic was more than one bee per second moving out.

OK... Gotta make sure they had room so I took a full deep to swap with the nuc. It's a good thing, too. As I was unloading the car I noticed that some of the girls had figured out even another way in -- a big rotted knot 3-4 feet below the primary "tree entrance." This was minor compared to the other side but you don't want them to pass the word.

Stuffed the hole with wadded up newsprint and garbage bags. For good measure, I added a couple of drops of Bee-Go. That done, I took the nuc down to the ground and moved the five full frames to the deep. They were drawing out the foundation nicely and there are two nice queen cells side by side on the frame I added with eggs 8 days ago. And, like the 15# swarm that went befor them, theses are wonderful and gentle bees.

Although I worked fast, there were a few hundred hovering and confused by the time I carried the deep back up the ladder and got it onto the platform. And nobody liked the secondary entrance anymore. :)

An interesting observation... with the change in boxes, some of the girls lined up on the entrance and did the "fanning" thing (even without the new queen), I suppose to say, "It may look different but it is home."

Mike,Just curious...do you think it better to have the exit end of the funnel through a hole into the inside of the box requiring them to go thru the box as they exit the funnel?I have noticed no TO's with that method....there must be a reason or no advantage.

Mike, cool trap out, question if I may. I understand the the funnelling into the nuc etc, can the Bee's then travel backward and forward from the original hive and back into the nuc? or is it a one way trip once they exist the original hive.

Regarding the "walk through" questions, that is exactly what I did when I first started -- a swarm had adopted my old plywood utility trailer box. As I have learned, the go-thru method uses the trap box as "extended hive space" and it requires a lot more management. With the cone, they simply cannot get back into the old 'hive' and adopt the new space.

The primary ongoing management after setting up and sealing the edges of the big side of the screen cone is to 1) make sure there are no additional entrances that can be adopted as the new primary, 2) make sure that the angle is set so dead bees don't block the skinny end of the screen cone -- be careful not to have too long of a tunnel where traffic jams can occur. 3) swap a frame for one with fresh eggs after enough bees have moved in to keep the eggs and hatched brood warm. 4) If you are starting with a nuc or smaller box, monitor the space -- it's a pain to have to do a swap like I did with this one just because you started with too small a box due to a shortage of woodware.

Once you get to this stage, fewer 'management' trips should be required. I'm sure others can contribute to this thread.

Glad to see you made it. Now sit back and enjoy. Ask when you need, Contribute when you can

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

PrestonI've twice tried putting a wire cone on the inside of a super which butts right up against the entrance of a hive located in a tree. The bees have to pass through the super and then the wire cone to exit the hive. It did not work for me but I'm going to try it again next year.

Mike, If there is anything you want to know about trap-outs go to the honey removal heading and observe the trap-out master at work,,, presented by robo.. nuff said. like your inovation with the deer stand.